Police Encounters with Homeless Injecting Drug Users in Skid Row

• In Event: Policing the Working Poor, Street Vendors, and Homeless Drug Users – Would a Diverse Force Matter?

Abstract

Perceptions of interactions with police affect police-community relations and trust in government institutions. When citizens view police interactions as fair, procedural justice is achieved. When interactions include prejudicial treatment, derogatory language, threats, and force, the interaction is viewed as unfair (procedural injustice), police-community relations are disrupted, and a lack of trust in government institutions results (Van den Bos et al., 2014).
The homeless population has frequent police interactions. They live in public view, and many of their behaviors (i.e., vagrancy, loitering, sitting and sleeping on sidewalks) are criminalized. Homeless injection drug users (IDUs) have a higher rate of police interactions (Maher & Dixon, 1999), which result in syringe confiscation, increased drug-related harms, citation, and/or arrest (Bourgois, 2010).
This study explores procedural justice via police interactions with homeless IDU on Los Angeles’ Skid Row. Using secondary data collected from 100 homeless participants of a syringe exchange, this study shows how homeless IDU have both positive (e.g., respectful) and negative (e.g., threatening) interactions with the police. The negative interactions often include searches and confiscation of legal syringes and/or Narcan, which results in syringe sharing and dirty syringe use.
This study concludes with implications for enhancing procedural justice and better serving homeless IDUs.

Authors

• Dina Perrone, California State University, Long Beach

• Maryanne Alderson, California State University, Long Beach

• Aili Malm, California State University, Long Beach